


Where the Miracle's Kept

by yourinsomnia



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies), Mad Max: Fury Road
Genre: Aftermath, F/M, Fix-It, h/c
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-21
Updated: 2015-05-21
Packaged: 2018-03-31 13:03:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3979060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yourinsomnia/pseuds/yourinsomnia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nux survives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where the Miracle's Kept

**Author's Note:**

> Quick sketch of the aftermath featuring Nux because we all know that boy just doesn't die. Title from The Doppler Shift's song Atrophy (great companion music to Mad Max by the way).

A voice calls out his name, quiet in the echoing silence. 

“Nux, can you hear me?”

Louder now—the voice is like a crackle of invading fire, worming its way into his head, reverberating through his skull with jolts of pain. He wishes he could yell, but with every breath he takes, his lungs constrict tighter as though they’ve turned into rusted metal and came to a grinding hault. He rolls over to the side and presses his hands into his ears. _Go away, go away,_ he screams silently. 

“Nux, look at me,” the voice is gentler now, a flame licking at his consciousnesses. Warm hands reach out to touch him somewhere in the vicinity of his forehead but they feel scorching hot upon his skin. 

He tries to open his eyes but he can’t. And behind his shut eyes, where there should be darkness, there is fire instead. 

“Shhh, it’ll be okay,” the voice dies and with it—everything else. 

***

When he finally wakes, so does the pain. It’s everywhere, from his legs to his head; his whole body is bristled with it.

“You are one lucky skeleton boy,” someone says by his side. 

“Capable,” he whispers. He opens his eyes and takes in her silhouette in the dimly lit room.

“It’s still hard to believe you were alive under all that rubble,” she says and although he can’t see her face very clearly, he can hear the smile in her voice. 

He attempts to get up but it’s too much and it's too quick and so he falls back. He realizes his back is badly burnt; his skin feels like leather that’s been skinned off an animal long dead and stretched across a drum. He groans and remains where he is. 

“I don’t think they want me in Walhalla,” he says through gritted teeth. 

“No, I don’t think so,” she says, almost laughing, but he can’t quite grasp the source of her amusement. 

After, she tells him to rest and leaves him in the dark. 

***

Sleep does not come easy.

Even in the compounds of the Citadel where he stayed with Slit and the other warboys, suspended between day and night, between painful breaths and the non-existence, the shadows alive with the movement of the other boys crawling around like cockroaches, sleep came but it was so disturbed that Nux had trouble discerning it from reality. 

When he does fall asleep, he doesn’t dream—he burns. 

*** 

Capable visits him as much as she can in between tending to other things that to Nux seem infinitely more important than taking care of one, sick warboy. Nevertheless, she brings him food, mostly soup and porridge, and both taste like heaven compared to the sandy gruel he’s been fed his whole life. She stays and talks about how Furiosa and the others are doing, how the warboys are adjusting to their new war-free existence, about the experiments they’ve been conducting with the seeds. 

The burns on his back heal slowly but the pain is softer now, its edge gone along with the gnawing feeling of thirst that weighed him down night and day.

And there are also the baths. 

The first time Capable, assisted by a warboy who Nux doesn’t recognize, takes him to one he’s barely conscious and is unable to process the experience. 

He’s lucid for the second time around and the shock of being lowered into shallow water—cool, soothing—is more intoxicating than the high he’d gotten on Fury Road when he was seconds away from the glory of death.

He stays in for a long time, hypnotized by the ripples as his hands move effortlessly underwater. With the white paint and the grime washed away, his skin turns the color of sand, his natural skin color, he supposes, and all his scars, burns and sickly patches are all the more apparent but it bothers him as little as the mark sprawled across his chest. 

Nothing about Nux seems to bother Capable either. She likes to stand by the edge of the bath, and gently, almost mechanically pour water over his back. 

By the third bath, he turns to face her and asks her if she would like to join him. She cocks an eyebrow at him, mildly surprised, but doesn’t reply and simply resumes dousing him with water. 

Not known for his patience, Nux takes her arm and pulls her in. She could fight if she wants to, in his current state she could probably overpower him with her pinky, but she doesn’t. She falls right in, the clothes she’s wearing, dark khaki pants and a black t-shirt—much less revealing attire than the one he's first seen her in—getting soaked immediately. 

“Don’t want to waste water, you know?” he explains. 

She looks at him, amused, her eyes the clear blue of the hottest day. 

She indulges him and joins him for the next bath. They switch roles and now Nux pours water over her body. Her skin so white, it seems ethereal. He washes her hair which turns blood red in the water. He takes a few locks of hair and kisses them. 

“It doesn’t burn,” he mutters. 

“What is it?” Capable asks. 

“Nothing,” he says, stroking her hair as though it is the single most fragile thing he’s ever held. 

***

Nux’s hands begin to itch for the wheel when he’s still bed-ridden. When he gets well enough to stand he asks to drive again. 

“Let me talk to Furiosa,” he pleads with Capable. “We still need supplies.”

“No,” Capable says. “We don’t pillage for supplies anymore. We _trade_.”

“Trade?”

“Come with me,” she commands and takes his hand. 

She leads him through the corridors of the upper Citadel where he’s been staying. Whole floors of rooms that belonged to Immortan Jo and his offsprings. Some doors are open and Nux glimpses into rooms which are full of women, children and warboys. There are people in the corridors too, and some are holding strange objects whose functionality escapes Nux. Capable catches him staring at one passerby and halts to say, “Those are books.”

“Oh,” he says, not knowing exactly what those are either but too embarrassed to ask more. Too embarassed by how much of the civilization is secret to him. 

Despite how crowded the upper Citadel has become, it’s not chaotic; everyone’s subdued and orderly. It’s a rhythm that Nux is not used to. 

Finally they reach their destination and Capable opens the door to a massive room flooded with sunlight. It’s so bright that Nux is blinded for a moment. When his eyes adjust, he begins to wonder if he’s hallucinating because he’s seeing a color more vivid than anything he’d ever seen before; more vivid than the red of blood or fire. 

“This is…” he begins, breathless. 

“Nux, we have this and we could have much more,” Capable says, her voice soft, with a hint of pride. “If only we could protect this. That’s what we need you for. Not for war or pillaging.”

Nux ignores her and walks into the row of green things. The color is even more vibrant up close. Unconsciously, his hands reach out to touch it. It’s delicate to the touch, more delicate than Capable’s hair, and it feels alive, almost breathing. 

Capable walks up to stand next to him. 

_I’ll do whatever you want me to,_ he thinks but does not say because she already knows it.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Miracle Interlude](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4003756) by [evenhisfacewasanalias](https://archiveofourown.org/users/evenhisfacewasanalias/pseuds/evenhisfacewasanalias)




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